Thieves' Guild progression

Saturn

I hope this is not intentional, but I am currently at a point on the PTS where to get the next quest I have to reach the next Thieves' Guild rank, which requires more and more repeatables completed for every rank you reach. It is a lot faster at the moment since you can use the six daily heists to get a maximum of 120 xp per day, but when this goes live (and you can only do one heist per day) I can forsee the grind being a really pain as the infinite repeatables give between 5-10 xp and for example I currently need 180 xp to reach rank 7.

If you do a heist and the daily quest for the guy outside of the Den you can gain a maximum of 25 xp (if you beat the optional part of the heist), which would mean that I would have to do between 15-30 of the repeatables from Kari's Tip Board to reach rank 7 in one day if this was on Live. And rank 8 will require even more xp to reach. There are 12 ranks, but I don't know if the very last thieves' guild quest requires rank 12 to unlock.

I hope this is not how it will work when it reaches Live as this kind of immense grinding needed to simply progress the questline is insane. I thought it was a bug at first, but my last three quests only unlocked when I reached the next rank so it seems very likely that it is an intended progression mechanic.

The way to fix it would either be to completely unlock the quests to be done whenever one wished to do so, or to increase the amount of experience the repeatable quests can reward.

deleted008293

I don't like this idea much either... It is good overall but it is implemented a little bad.
- It means you have to do over and over and over same quests.
- No random quest givers like give me this do that etc to raise reputation in that town.
- Reputation is tied to the skill line... Not everyone know that.
- Also not much info when you will unlock the next main quest.

Saturn

nordmarian wrote: »

I don't like this idea much either... It is good overall but it is implemented a little bad.
- It means you have to do over and over and over same quests.
- No random quest givers like give me this do that etc to raise reputation in that town.
- Reputation is tied to the skill line... Not everyone know that.
- Also not much info when you will unlock the next main quest.

@nordmarian
Indeed. I spent about 3 hours today just grinding to unlock rank 7 so I could advance the story. It also makes no sense that they would restrict it like this when the Mage's Guild and the Fighter's Guild both have no rank requirement to do the next quest, although they are based on level requirement, those don't have you grind the same quests over and over.

The most annoying about this is that if this hits Live unchanged then a lot of people will likely just get frustrated and not finish the story, which is a shame because they did a really good job with it from what I have experienced so far.

theroyalestpythonnub18_ESO

I'm in the same boat. I'm about half way through rank five and sick of pickpocketing quests. The pace was good for about the first 3-4 ranks, now it's a slog, and it's just going to get worse.

Enodoc

Saturn wrote: »

It also makes no sense that they would restrict it like this when the Mage's Guild and the Fighter's Guild both have no rank requirement to do the next quest, although they are based on level requirement

That's not true, it's exactly like the Mages Guild and Fighters Guild quests. To get Quest 3 in the Mages Guild, you need to be at Rank 3. To get Quest 5, you need to get to Rank 5. Level is irrelevant for Guild quests. So it's most logical to use the same setup for the Thieves Guild as well. There are only six Thieves Guild story quests though, so I don't know why you need to get to Rank 7, unless they missed a rank out when putting the quest requirements in.

Saturn

Enodoc wrote: »

Saturn wrote: »

It also makes no sense that they would restrict it like this when the Mage's Guild and the Fighter's Guild both have no rank requirement to do the next quest, although they are based on level requirement

That's not true, it's exactly like the Mages Guild and Fighters Guild quests. To get Quest 3 in the Mages Guild, you need to be at Rank 3. To get Quest 5, you need to get to Rank 5. Level is irrelevant for Guild quests. So it's most logical to use the same setup for the Thieves Guild as well. There are only six Thieves Guild story quests though, so I don't know why you need to get to Rank 7, unless they missed a rank out when putting the quest requirements in.

Oh I guess I always thought it was level requirements. But yeah, where I am at I need 220 xp to reach rank 8 in order to get what I think is the last quest, which if I want to get it today will take me about 30 repeatables, all of which takes between 10-15 minutes if you speed through them.. It is a horrible progression rate.

Saturn

theroyalestpythonnub18_ESO wrote: »

I'm in the same boat. I'm about half way through rank five and sick of pickpocketing quests. The pace was good for about the first 3-4 ranks, now it's a slog, and it's just going to get worse.

One thing that helps a little bit is doing Kari's Hit List, returning a treasure gives you some xp.

Enodoc

Saturn wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

Saturn wrote: »

It also makes no sense that they would restrict it like this when the Mage's Guild and the Fighter's Guild both have no rank requirement to do the next quest, although they are based on level requirement

That's not true, it's exactly like the Mages Guild and Fighters Guild quests. To get Quest 3 in the Mages Guild, you need to be at Rank 3. To get Quest 5, you need to get to Rank 5. Level is irrelevant for Guild quests. So it's most logical to use the same setup for the Thieves Guild as well. There are only six Thieves Guild story quests though, so I don't know why you need to get to Rank 7, unless they missed a rank out when putting the quest requirements in.

Oh I guess I always thought it was level requirements. But yeah, where I am at I need 220 xp to reach rank 8 in order to get what I think is the last quest, which if I want to get it today will take me about 30 repeatables, all of which takes between 10-15 minutes if you speed through them.. It is a horrible progression rate.

Yeah I agree that's too high. Would it have been a better progression rate if it had unlocked at Rank 6? That's where I would have expected to see it.

anitajoneb17_ESO

It makes sense on many levels. You usually end up becoming the new guildmaster, or a major figure of the guild, thus you at least must have accomplished some guild-related duties. For mages' and fighters' guilds, it forces the progression there to be paced at the same rhythm as the overall progression of your character and the discovery of the world. It's also a tradition in Elder Scrolls games.

That said... I absolutely HATE IT. If I'm questing, I get immersed in the story and want to finish that story. It's utterly annoying to have to go through repeatable/daily quests which are NOT story-driven and of a totally different nature, just to be able to carry on with the story.

All in all, I wish they would get rid of that system and use the same logic as in IC for instance : main story quest first, repeatable quests later for those who want to hang around longer.

It is particularly annoying in Thieves Guild because, heists excepted, all activities are stuff we've already been doing for ages as part of the justice system / legerdemain skill line, so it feels even more tedious to have to do even more of it. I like breaking/entering and pickpocketing, that's not the issue, but I hate to have to do it in a forced and repetitive way just to be able to carry on with the thieves' guild main quest.

Enodoc

I would imagine it has good pacing if you run Thieves Guild alongside a levelling character in the same way as Mages and Fighters Guilds. You end up with the same issue of non-story-driven repetitive activities if you try and do Mages Guild all in one go and haven't been picking up lorebooks.

Darkonflare15

Saturn wrote: »

nordmarian wrote: »

I don't like this idea much either... It is good overall but it is implemented a little bad.
- It means you have to do over and over and over same quests.
- No random quest givers like give me this do that etc to raise reputation in that town.
- Reputation is tied to the skill line... Not everyone know that.
- Also not much info when you will unlock the next main quest.

@nordmarian
Indeed. I spent about 3 hours today just grinding to unlock rank 7 so I could advance the story. It also makes no sense that they would restrict it like this when the Mage's Guild and the Fighter's Guild both have no rank requirement to do the next quest, although they are based on level requirement, those don't have you grind the same quests over and over.

The most annoying about this is that if this hits Live unchanged then a lot of people will likely just get frustrated and not finish the story, which is a shame because they did a really good job with it from what I have experienced so far.

Fighter guild does have that requirement. You have to have a certain rank to get some quests.

Abeille

Enodoc wrote: »

Saturn wrote: »

It also makes no sense that they would restrict it like this when the Mage's Guild and the Fighter's Guild both have no rank requirement to do the next quest, although they are based on level requirement

That's not true, it's exactly like the Mages Guild and Fighters Guild quests. To get Quest 3 in the Mages Guild, you need to be at Rank 3. To get Quest 5, you need to get to Rank 5. Level is irrelevant for Guild quests. So it's most logical to use the same setup for the Thieves Guild as well. There are only six Thieves Guild story quests though, so I don't know why you need to get to Rank 7, unless they missed a rank out when putting the quest requirements in.

The difference is that you get the lore books and you kill the daedra needed to advance Mages and Fighters guilds while you are leveling and exploring, doing things not directly connected to their quests, while the way Thieves Guild skill levels up is completely disconnected from, well, anything other than the guild's quests. If we also got experience on the TG skill line for stealing, picking pockets/locks and opening troves/chests around the world, without the need of quests, it would be more similar to Mages and Fighters guilds. Problem is, we already have a skill tree that levels up like that, which is Legerdemain.

Saturn

Enodoc wrote: »

I would imagine it has good pacing if you run Thieves Guild alongside a levelling character in the same way as Mages and Fighters Guilds. You end up with the same issue of non-story-driven repetitive activities if you try and do Mages Guild all in one go and haven't been picking up lorebooks.

Guess what. It gets way worse >.< The xp requirement for rank 8 is 220 xp to get what I think is one of the minor personal quests, then the next rank after will probably be like 260 xp for another minor quest.. *sigh* I won't be able to finish the questline before they flip it over to EU toons, and I started questing five days ago and have already sunk over 10 hours into it.

Enodoc

@Saturn Can you do a rundown of which quests you've gotten at which rank? I've got up to Rank 4 myself so far:

Rank 1 - Partners in Crime (Story)
Rank 2 - Cleaning House (Story) > A Double Life (Quen)
Rank 3 - The Long Game (Story) > Shell Game (Walks-Softly)
Rank 4 - A Faded Flower (Velsa)


Remaining Story quests:
A Flawless Plan, Forever Hold Your Peace, Prison Break

ZOS_RichLambert

Thanks for the heads up on this... in looking at the data, the numbers are definitely off for the individual ranks. We'll get that adjusted ASAP.

Saturn

Enodoc wrote: »

@Saturn Can you do a rundown of which quests you've gotten at which rank? I've got up to Rank 4 myself so far:

Rank 1 - Partners in Crime (Story)
Rank 2 - Cleaning House (Story) > A Double Life (Quen)
Rank 3 - The Long Game (Story) > Shell Game (Walks-Softly)
Rank 4 - A Faded Flower (Velsa)


Remaining Story quests:
A Flawless Plan, Forever Hold Your Peace, Prison Break

A Flawless Plan was Rank 5. Rank 7 was Forever Hold Your Peace.

Saturn

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

Thanks for the heads up on this... in looking at the data, the numbers are definitely off for the individual ranks. We'll get that adjusted ASAP.

Thank you It would suck if we had to grind for weeks to finish the main story.

anitajoneb17_ESO

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

Thanks for the heads up on this... in looking at the data, the numbers are definitely off for the individual ranks. We'll get that adjusted ASAP.

So it WAS a bug ? Great news ! And thx for letting us know !

.

Enodoc

Saturn wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

@Saturn Can you do a rundown of which quests you've gotten at which rank? I've got up to Rank 4 myself so far:

Rank 1 - Partners in Crime (Story)
Rank 2 - Cleaning House (Story) > A Double Life (Quen)
Rank 3 - The Long Game (Story) > Shell Game (Walks-Softly)
Rank 4 - A Faded Flower (Velsa)


Remaining Story quests:
A Flawless Plan, Forever Hold Your Peace, Prison Break

A Flawless Plan was Rank 5. Rank 7 was Forever Hold Your Peace.

Great, thanks!

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

Thanks for the heads up on this... in looking at the data, the numbers are definitely off for the individual ranks. We'll get that adjusted ASAP.

@ZOS_RichLambert Thanks for the info! I was going to post elsewhere following Saturn's details of the rank that the story progression seems to stagnate after Rank 3. I had two suggestions on this; either that the story should follow this structure:

• Rank 1 - Partners in Crime (Story)
• Rank 2 - Cleaning House (Story) > A Double Life (Quen)
• Rank 3 - The Long Game (Story) > Shell Game (Walks-Softly)
• Rank 4 - A Flawless Plan (Story) > A Faded Flower (Velsa)
• Rank 5 - Forever Hold Your Peace (Story) > (? Last personal quest chain)
• Rank 6 - Prison Break (Story)

....which would perhaps be more intuitive, as "one story quest per rank" is the setup we have been introduced to already with the Fighters and Mages Guilds (also, the last of these quests was given at Rank 5 of a 10-rank line, so the last story quest at Rank 6 of a 12-rank line would make sense for Thieves Guild);

or that the total reputation required for each rank should be lower.

Saturn

Enodoc wrote: »

Saturn wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

@Saturn Can you do a rundown of which quests you've gotten at which rank? I've got up to Rank 4 myself so far:

Rank 1 - Partners in Crime (Story)
Rank 2 - Cleaning House (Story) > A Double Life (Quen)
Rank 3 - The Long Game (Story) > Shell Game (Walks-Softly)
Rank 4 - A Faded Flower (Velsa)


Remaining Story quests:
A Flawless Plan, Forever Hold Your Peace, Prison Break

A Flawless Plan was Rank 5. Rank 7 was Forever Hold Your Peace.

Great, thanks!

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

Thanks for the heads up on this... in looking at the data, the numbers are definitely off for the individual ranks. We'll get that adjusted ASAP.

@ZOS_RichLambert Thanks for the info! I was going to post elsewhere following Saturn's details of the rank that the story progression seems to stagnate after Rank 3. I had two suggestions on this; either that the story should follow this structure:

• Rank 1 - Partners in Crime (Story)
• Rank 2 - Cleaning House (Story) > A Double Life (Quen)
• Rank 3 - The Long Game (Story) > Shell Game (Walks-Softly)
• Rank 4 - A Flawless Plan (Story) > A Faded Flower (Velsa)
• Rank 5 - Forever Hold Your Peace (Story) > (? Last personal quest chain)
• Rank 6 - Prison Break (Story)

....which would perhaps be more intuitive, as "one story quest per rank" is the setup we have been introduced to already with the Fighters and Mages Guilds (also, the last of these quests was given at Rank 5 of a 10-rank line, so the last story quest at Rank 6 of a 12-rank line would make sense for Thieves Guild);

or that the total reputation required for each rank should be lower.

@Enodoc
I just unlocked Prison Break at rank 8. Still missing two of the minor personal quests and the next quest is 260 xp away, *sigh*. I'll give up and wait for Live I think.

anitajoneb17_ESO

Saturn wrote: »

@Enodoc
I just unlocked Prison Break at rank 8. Still missing two of the minor personal quests and the next quest is 260 xp away, *sigh*. I'll give up and wait for Live I think.

Maybe the fix will be in the next PTS patch which is due some time tomorrow. And IIRC, we'll have new templates full already maxed out legerdemain annd thieves' guild (not sure though).

ShadowHvo

Yeah.. Its really a shame that it must be locked behind a grindwall =/

QuebraRegra

my apologies for being late to the party, I took a break for a while.

This was a major issue that caused me to unsub, is it still this way? Are the quests still locked behind a huge boring grindwall?

code65536

QuebraRegra wrote: »

my apologies for being late to the party, I took a break for a while.

This was a major issue that caused me to unsub, is it still this way? Are the quests still locked behind a huge boring grindwall?

Wow. Necroing a thread from half a year ago! And from the Public Test Server. The concerns with progression in this thread were fixed before Thieves Guild went Live, so no idea why it would've made you unsub, since it never made it out of the PTS in this state.

Saturn

QuebraRegra wrote: »

my apologies for being late to the party, I took a break for a while.

This was a major issue that caused me to unsub, is it still this way? Are the quests still locked behind a huge boring grindwall?

@QuebraRegra
No. This is not really an issue anymore, this was a big problem on the PTS, but has long since been rectified. Furthermore, if you do the A Cutpurse Above achievement, you are able to start with quite a big lead in Thieves' Guild experience, and can do a lot of story quests before having to do any dailies or repeatables.

This party basically ended a few months before you showed up knocking at the door ;p

Fudly_budly

Saturn wrote: »

theroyalestpythonnub18_ESO wrote: »

I'm in the same boat. I'm about half way through rank five and sick of pickpocketing quests. The pace was good for about the first 3-4 ranks, now it's a slog, and it's just going to get worse.

One thing that helps a little bit is doing Kari's Hit List, returning a treasure gives you some xp.

Nope!!! Just ran a quick in-game test of a toon at TG rank 2 with 5/25 inspiration to rank 3. Stole Prince Neiman's (sp.) Decanter and placed in Hew's Bane TG Den. Rank meter didn't budge.

Saturn

Fudly_budly wrote: »

Saturn wrote: »

theroyalestpythonnub18_ESO wrote: »

I'm in the same boat. I'm about half way through rank five and sick of pickpocketing quests. The pace was good for about the first 3-4 ranks, now it's a slog, and it's just going to get worse.

One thing that helps a little bit is doing Kari's Hit List, returning a treasure gives you some xp.

Nope!!! Just ran a quick in-game test of a toon at TG rank 2 with 5/25 inspiration to rank 3. Stole Prince Neiman's (sp.) Decanter and placed in Hew's Bane TG Den. Rank meter didn't budge.

They must have changed it then. It used to give you ~3 ranks (from base rank) if you did the entire Hit List.

Keep in mind you are replying to a post from February, that's some vile forum necromancy right there ;p